1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for automatically filling a container for collecting flat objects, especially such as mail envelopes conveyed through a sorting installation by means of a conveyor device and delivered to a receiving location where these envelopes are progressively stacked up, each stood up on their edge in a vertical plane one behind the other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Mail sorting installations of this kind are already known in which the envelopes, after passing for example past a machine which orientates them as a function of the reading of written or printed codes on their surface identifying the destination of the mail, and sends them to an appropriate receiving location in which they are stored in the form of a stack built up progressively from these envelopes placed in succession one against the other in this location.
In these conventional embodiments the envelopes, in each receiving location, are guided against one, or alternatively held between two, vertical parallel edge plates extending perpendicularly to the plane of the envelopes in the stack, the latter growing uniformly with the number of these envelopes which become incorporated into the stack, further more progressively pushing back a moving stop which presses against the first envelope in this stack, and which moves back under the effect of the pressure of these envelopes as these are gradually distributed into the receiving location.
When the stack of envelopes reaches a given thickness, corresponding substantially to the length of a receiving container, these envelopes have to be picked up simultaneously and placed in this container, this operation generally being carried out by hand or with means for moving the stack en masse, which are complicated and difficult to adjust accurately and quickly.